5G: World is abandoning China’s Hauwei — Pompeo

U.S. Secretary of State, Mr Michael Pompeo, says the “tide is turning against” Chinese multinational telecom giant, Huawei, in the sale of 5G technologies.

The assertion comes amid efforts by the U.S. to cut off the global information and telecom solutions provider from the supply chain over cyber security concerns.

President Donald Trump believes the Chinese government is using Huawei to conduct cyber espionage on the U.S. and around the world, an accusation the company denies.

In 2019, the administration blacklisted Hauwei, a move that forbids U.S. ICT companies from buying equipment from the Chinese firm.

The administration also threatened to severe intelligence sharing ties with U.S. allies that patronise the company for their ICT infrastructure.

It went further to release a rule in May aimed at crippling global sale of chips made with U.S. technology to Hauwei.

The new rule requires U.S. licences for shipments of such chips, produced outside the U.S., to the telecoms giant.

Pompeo said: “The tide is turning against Huawei as citizens around the world are waking up to the danger of the Chinese Communist Party’s surveillance state.

“Huawei’s deals with telecommunications operators around the world are evaporating, because countries are only allowing trusted vendors in their 5G networks.

“Examples include the Czech Republic, Poland, Sweden, Estonia, Romania, Denmark and Latvia.”

The Secretary of State said Greece recently agreed to use Ericsson rather than Huawei to develop its 5G infrastructure.

According to him, some of the largest telecom companies around the world are also becoming “Clean Telcos”.

“We’ve seen this with Orange in France, Jio in India, Telstra in Australia, SK and KT in South Korea, NTT in Japan, and O2 in the United Kingdom.

“A few weeks ago, the big three telecommunications companies in Canada decided to partner with Ericsson, Nokia, and Samsung, because public opinion was overwhelmingly against allowing Huawei to build Canada’s 5G networks.

“Telefónica states in its Digital Manifesto that ‘security is paramount,’ and its CEO and Chairman José María Álvarez-Pallete López recently declared, ‘Telefónica is proud to be a 5G Clean Path company.

“Telefónica Spain and O2 (UK) are fully clean networks, and Telefónica Deutschland (Germany) and Vivo (Brazil) will be in the near future without equipment from any untrusted vendors,” he added.

Pompeo said global preference of secure 5G was increasing, noting that Hauwei was not a company to be trusted with sensitive data.